West Bank Pullout Deal Is Near

U.s.-brokered Pact Would Give Israel Mid-1998 Deadline

JERUSALEM — Israeli and Palestinian negotiators struggled late Monday to polish the final draft of a U.S.-brokered deal that could resuscitate the Mideast peace process by requiring Israel to pull back its last troops from Palestinian areas of the West Bank by mid-1998.

Despite a bomb scare at the Jerusalem hotel where negotiators huddled Monday night and threats of violence from opponents of compromise, the agreement appeared all but complete. Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai went so far as to predict that it would be signed Tuesday.

If so, the compromise deal would represent the first formal advance in the peace process since Israel elected the hard-line Likud Party prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last May. The breakthrough centers on a plan that would alter the timetable set out in a 1995 Israel-PLO treaty and include a fresh U.S. guarantee that Israel's postponed army redeployments will be completed in the West Bank no later than one year behind schedule.

Barring any last-minute changes, the first of three pullbacks in rural areas of the West Bank would take place Feb. 22, followed by a second redeployment eight months later. The third and final redeployment would occur no later than Aug. 31, 1998, Israel Radio reported.

Edward Abington, the U.S. consul general to Jerusalem who was participating in the late-night talks, said negotiations could lead to a summit between Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat at which they would sign the accord.

Other diplomatic sources, however, suggested that Netanyahu and Arafat would instead designate their chief negotiators to initial the deal, suggesting that months of haggling and posturing may have left some bitterness between the leaders.

The push toward this newest compromise was supplied by the potent international intercession of American and Middle Eastern leaders.

Jordan's King Hussein, acting at the behest of the Americans, entered the talks Sunday. Diplomatic sources said the king feared the peace process was about to collapse, an event that would disrupt regional stability and sour already strained relations between Israel and Jordan and Egypt.

The Israeli daily Yediot Ahranot reported Monday that another boost came from a dramatic international conference call that included Warren Christopher, the outgoing U.S. secretary of state, speaking from Washington; Netanyahu in Jerusalem; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, and Arafat, Hussein and U.S. mediator Dennis Ross in Gaza.

If signed, the accord would clear the way for the long-delayed redeployment of Israeli troops from 80 percent of the volatile West Bank town of Hebron. But that prospect fueled outrage Monday from right-wing Jews who oppose giving way land promised in the Bible, even in an exchange for a promise of peace.

The tentative agreement as outlined Monday already reflects the jockeying for position ahead of final status talks to resolve the remaining issues, which are the thorniest of all: final borders, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as their capital.

Foreign observers believe the new accord technically breaches the 1995 Interim Agreement between Israel's previous Labor-led government and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The 1995 deal set September 1997 as the deadline for completing the so-called "further redeployments" due after a Hebron pullback.

The Likud government of Netanyahu has demanded that further redeployments be postponed to May 1999, the same date the final status talks are to conclude. Arafat refused, holding out for the September date in the original accord, which had been endorsed by the Clinton administration.

The administration, speaking through Ross, the special Mideast envoy, offered a compromise of mid-1998 to bridge the gap. American mediators feared that if neither side would budge, the Hebron redeployment, due to take place last March, might be postponed indefinitely. The compromise was said to be endorsed by Jordan and Egypt.

The bitterness of the debate was underscored Monday night by a bomb scare at the Laromme Hotel in Jerusalem. Police evacuated the Palestinian negotiating team around 9:30 p.m., along with Ross and Abington, while police and dogs searched for explosives. Police said a "German-speaking man" called the threat into the hotel switchboard. Negotiators said they would resume the talks when police were finished.

"It is too early to say if it will be concluded," Netanyahu said of the accord Monday night. "We need patience. We have plenty of patience. I will sign an agreement when I am convinced that our goals have been reached."